Newark man freed after nearly 25 years in prison starts a new life

Tim Farrell/The Star-LedgerQuincy Spruell, who many law experts say was wrongly convicted of a murder, was given early release from prison by Gov. Jon Corzine. Here Spruell stands in front of the East Orange address where the murder took place.

NEWARK -- Quincy Spruell carefully strapped himself into the passenger seat of the car and hung on for dear life. There were many things the 44-year-old Newark man was enjoying for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century, but riding in an automobile wasn’t one of them: It gave him motion sickness.

Some things are harder to adjust to when you’ve spent more than half your life in a 5-by-8-foot jail cell.

In January, after serving 24 years and 10 months of a 30-year jail term for murder, Spruell’s sentence was partially commuted by the outgoing governor, Jon Corzine. Although he will remain on parole for five years, Spruell walked out of Northern State Prison in Newark on Feb. 17, a free man.

Soft-spoken and bookish, he spent five years of his incarceration in solitary confinement, all for a crime he, his lawyers, justice advocates, even former New Jersey Attorney General John Farmer Jr., say he did not commit.

"There were times when I felt I was on the brink of insanity," said Spruell last month as he sat in Topps diner in Harrison. "I lost all my 20s, lost all of my 30s and half of my 40s."

A high school dropout and juvenile delinquent when he was convicted in the shooting death of a suspected drug dealer in 1985, Spruell is now a middle-aged man who had to ask a fellow inmate to read him the newspaper story about the commutation of his sentence because he’d left his glasses in his cell.

At first, he couldn’t believe it when a guard told him about the article.

"What?" Spruell said, surprised, because he thought Corzine had failed to act on his petition for release.

"Yeah, man, you’re going home," the guard said.

LOVE CONQUERS ALL

So far, Spruell has made the most of his newfound freedom. He landed a job before he even left jail. In April, he married a woman he’d been introduced to while incarcerated, and this month he moved to Maryland with the blessing of his parole board.

His wife, who declined to be named, is a 35-year-old schoolteacher, and before they wed their nearly 20-year relationship was based entirely on letters, phone calls and brief visits.

"I loved him even before I saw him — his mannerism, his tone, his intelligence, his common-sense approach to life, the care he takes with people, even strangers," said the woman.

Now Spruell is a working suburbanite. A consultant for Telesis, a Washington D.C.-based redevelopment company that refurbishes and builds affordable homes, he is designing a prisoner-reentry program. The founder and president of Telesis, Marilyn Melkonian, became good friends with Spruell through his father, who once worked for her as a property manager.

"He’s very strong, he’s loving, he is devoted to the truth," Melkonian said.

MODERN PROBLEMS

Slipping into his new life has occasionally been jarring, however. In 1985, when Spruell began serving his sentence, there were no digital cameras, no e-Bay or Amazon, and Nokia’s "Talkman" mobile phone was portable only if you also carried around a 12-pound battery pack.

Since his release, Spruell has used a debit card for the first time, passed his driver’s test (despite needing medication for the motion sickness) and learned how to "text." The ubiquity of cell phones, however, unsettles him.

"I see these kids walking around with phones — that’s kind of strange, the way it minimizes social interaction," he said. "Phones interrupt, they constantly interrupt."

THE CONFESSION

Spruell couldn’t possibly have anticipated the turn his life would take 25 years ago when he and a friend, Shawn Cummings, were asked by an acquaintance to avenge the beating she had taken at the hands of her boyfriend. She even gave them a key to his apartment.

Months later, East Orange police questioned Spruell about the assault, robbery and murder of a suspected drug dealer. Spruell thought the police were talking about the man he and Cummings had beaten. He must have died after the attack. The 19-year-old confessed, not realizing the police were questioning him about a crime that had taken place a month before he and Cummings attacked the woman’s boyfriend.

The problem was the two crimes seemed so similar. Both victims were alleged drug dealers, both attacks involved an unforced entry and robbery, and both occurred on the upper floors of high-rise apartment buildings just a couple miles apart.

Spruell and Cummings were convicted by a jury despite the fact two key witnesses for the prosecution recanted during the trial and there was no physical evidence — no fingerprints, no weapon, and no eyewitnesses.

On why the charges went forward despite the many holes in the case, Spruell said, "You will have to ask the prosecutor that."

A spokesman for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office said she could not comment because prosecutors who handled the case were no longer there.

MIND OVER MATTER

Spruell made the most of his time behind bars — he was shifted around to four different prisons — mainly by plunging into reading for the first time in his life.

"I was mentally hungry for information," he said. "I wanted to understand the world around me."

Spruell earned his high school diploma in 2001, and four years later earned an associate degree in art from Thomas Edison State College. At East Jersey State Prison in Rahway, Spruell also became a teacher’s assistant, helping other inmates earn their GEDs, and in 2007 added another correspondence-course diploma, in paralegal studies, to his growing resume.

Through the years he filed multiple motions to overturn his conviction, but all appeals were denied. Defense lawyer Alan Zegas and former state Attorney General John Farmer Jr. continued to work on the case.

Eventually a law clinic team headed by Laura Cohen at Rutgers Law School in Newark finally convinced Corzine to free Spruell.

"I feel terrible he was wrongly in jail for so long," said Zegas. "But despite hardship he was made to endure, he was always optimistic and saw a grain of hope when many people in his position may have seen none."

Staying in close touch with friends and family, including his parents, Barbara and Chauncey Spruell, two younger brothers and one sister, was vital as well. So was keeping fit. Spruell worked out, but more importantly, he tried to avoid unhealthy food.

"I know people who were serving 30-year sentences and dying in 27 years," he said. "Those prisoners died of diabetes and heart disease due to the poor prison diet, which is loaded with sodium, simple carbs and with little nutrition."

Spruell ate smoked salmon at a Jersey Shore restaurant his first night out of jail.

"I am enjoying every moment of being free," he said.

Married only six weeks, Spruell and his new bride have big plans. He wants to earn his bachelor’s degree and she is planning a trip to Africa once her husband is off parole.

HAUNTED BY THE PAST

But as Spruell slowly rebuilds his life, he is still pulled back to the crime that landed him in jail 25 years ago. One of his missions now is to free his codefendant, Cummings, who was sentenced to 55 years and remains behind bars at Northern State Prison.

"That’s the only thing that haunts me — that Shawn is still there," Spruell said.

One sunny afternoon in April, Spruell visited the site of the murder that landed him in jail, a tidy East Orange apartment building. The last time he was there it was with the East Orange police who took him back to the scene of a crime he says he never committed.

"A wrong needs to be righted," Spruell said. "This where the crime happened that cost me 25 years of my life."